MUMBAI: When Baba Ramdev met Aditya Pittie four years ago, the glaring contrast in their appearance was striking. One, a bearded baba in a saffron robe with rustic mannerism and the other, a suave 30-year-old entrepreneur from King’s College London. But together, they have now helped create a business empire selling two dozen mainstream FMCG products — from toothpastes, shampoos and other personal care products to modern convenience foods such as cornflakes and instant noodles.

While Patanjali Ayurved had a meteoric rise to a Rs 10,500 crore company now from barely Rs1000 crore in 2013, its sole modern trade distributor, the Pittie Group, saw its revenues surge to nearly Rs 1,200 crore from scratch.

“My father had known Swamiji and Acharyaji (Patanjali CEO Acharya Balkrishna) for almost eight to nine years. When I proposed a structure to build a supply-chain network with a singlewindow service to Patanjali for the entire organised channel, Swamiji merely took three to four minutes to agree,” said Pittie, CEO of the Pittie Group that started in 1991, and has business interests in real estate, spiritual channel Shubh Tv and also owns a majority stake in frozen yogurt chain Yogurtbay. His father, Krishnakumar Pittie, has been a follower of Baba Ramdev.

Patanjali, which started as a small pharmacy in 1997, began challenging the dominance of multinationals only after its partnership with the Pittie Group about four years after the company decided to sell beyond its exclusive network of Arogya Kendra and Chikitsalayas. The modern trade distributor, who is also its partner for general trade in Mumbai, helped Patanjali cash in on resurgent Indian nationalism by marketing the company’s products at air-conditioned aisles of supermarkets to Indian consumers with lower price-tags, amid growing perception that they are more ‘natural’ and wholesome than competing products.

Patanjali has a network of 10,000 franchisebased stores. It also sells products to nearly a million kirana stores through hundreds of distributors.

Pittie has proved his ability to take on the challenge given by Ramdev, said Acharya Balkrishna. “He did take time initially but has soon contributed significantly that gives us the confidence to hand over additional responsibilities. He is a hard worker, earnest and understands what Patanjali stands for.”

But it wasn’t easy for Patanjali, which then was a word-of-mouth brand with hardly any advertising. Also, modern retailers operate on a discount format where pretty much every product is sold below the MRP. However, Patanjali has a zerodiscount philosophy across its distribution channels. When Pittie approached his first customer, Reliance Retail, he went in for the meeting carrying a box of Patanjali products himself, despite his company having 1,100 employees.

Reliance Retail CEO Damodar Mall took the bet and put the products on shelves. “You or me can’t decide what will sell. Let consumers decide for us,” Mall told Pittie.

Fortunately for him, it worked as consumers lapped up the products which had price tags lower than rivals but unlike other products, had zero promotions or offers on them. “Our strategy to sell Patanjali under one bay and location paid off. There were consumers of Patanjali who got to experience the entire range in one location as opposed to different categories. To me these two innovations are not only unique but also unprecedented in modern retail,” Pittie said.

In India, Ayurvedic brands have outgrown overall consumer products market by three times in household penetration and over ten times in volume growth. But it seems the orangerobed Baba had a halo effect, not just on the entire category but also his partners.

Anand Mahindra partnered Pittie and brought him on board to reposition EPIC, the niche infotainment channel that had investors like Mukesh Ambani but is now owned jointly by Mahindra and Pittie. Pittie is the managing director of the channel with a minority stake.

“When I first met Aditya, I didn’t even know about his involvement with the Patanjali FMCG business. I only knew that his family had been running some TV channels. I was very impressed by his maturity beyond his years, and out of a pure gut instinct, I asked if he would be willing to step in at EPIC in order to assist its growth,” said the Mahindra & Mahindra chairman.

Pittie possesses abundant self-confidence, relentless optimism and has an admirable ability to rapidly learn from experience and adapt his business strategy to new realities, said Mahindra. “To me, this combination of attributes are what you see in most successful new-age entrepreneurs.”